There is a popular, “woke” narrative that the reason more people than ever are obese and in chronically poor health is a failing fitness industry—the fitness industry has failed to save us from ourselves. I’d argue that as awful as many areas of the fitness industry are, it is actually better than ever, overall.

There are more training options available—ranging from the mildest to the most extreme—more avenues for learning, better science, more good training videos, more extremely qualified experts giving great advice, and there is even more emphasis on relationships and customer-driven communication.

Sure, it is a problem that there are too many confusing, manipulative gimmicks in the weight loss industry. It’s a problem that there are too many unethical bad actors and unqualified trainers building clientele through social media. It’s a problem that there are too many overcompensating, judgy jerks at the gym.

It is even a problem that there are too many options. The paradox of choice is that as we become overwhelmed by the abundance of possible exercise protocols and diet programs, most people become exhausted and are less likely to act.

Furthermore, it is a problem that the globo-gym business model is built on selling people gym memberships they won’t use. But it also isn’t entirely the model. It is reality. If a waterpark sells you a summer pass and you don’t attend, is that somehow the waterpark’s fault? Say I rent you my spare bike for $5 a month to use for local commutes, but you never use it. Am I to blame?

Memberships are sold by gyms and personal trainers employed by those gyms are heavily incentivized to walk the floor, connect with people, get to know them and what makes them tick, and then offer an experience catered to their needs. Is this really on them?

Tremendous progress has been made through efforts to understand what holds people back and empathize with their unique needs. Unfortunately, this can bleed into a culture of entitlement, victimhood, and excuse-making.

The reality is that anyone can figure out how to get sustainably healthy if it’s important enough to them. Yet even as the fitness industry improves, people are less likely than ever to do so. We are always better off when we hold ourselves responsible for our own actions and when we’ve been empowered to strive towards solutions.

Trust me, I loathe the bad actors as much as anyone, but the world is too complex to expect each industry to perfect itself. Like every arena, things could be better, but the overwhelming issue is not that there is too much bad, it is that there is too little personal responsibility and too little capacity for discomfort.

The issue is that the standard model values of the modern world promote comfort, convenience, entitlement, and victimhood. People have learned to make excuses for every arena of life rather than confront the obvious truth. Anything worth doing is hard and hard things aren’t easy. The reality is that the fitness industry is not the problem. You are the problem.

Likewise, we can all point to our smartphones and admit that our screen dependency is a problem. But what stops us from making the necessary changes isn’t the brilliant technological design that hacks our neurology to create addiction. This is easily circumvented by a few well-documented personal habits and settings shifts.

What really keeps us from changing is that most people value convenience and comfort over growth, health, and self-reliance. The excuses are abundantly available. It is easier to be the victim of genius Silicon Valley programmers than to accept personal responsibility for our own lives—this is the problem. The modern health crisis isn’t caused by a failing fitness industry, but rather a failing value structure. The problem is culture and cultural values.

What Are Values and Why Do They Matter?

We all have values, whether we know it or not and, for most of us, they aren’t what we’d come up with in some team-building activity. Values are our operating system dictating millions of choices. A value system is simply a preference hierarchy.

Do you want to go to Vegas or Yellowstone? Your decision indicates whether you prefer flashy lights, big cities, gambling, and parties or nature, solitude, connection, and self-reliance.

Say you are at Best Buy and you see some Bluetooth earphones that you want, but that is out of your price range. They are small and easily concealable. Do you take them? Most likely you won’t because you value something more than having these. It might be integrity, but it might also be freedom from the fear of being caught or conformity to social norms. It is likely a combination of the latter two.

People may profess to value hard work, resiliency, honesty, humility, health, and personal growth, but their actions indicate that these values are further down the hierarchy. Most value comfort, convenience, pleasure, and entertainment far more. None of these are inherently bad as experiences but, as overriding values, they are extremely unfulfilling.

According to author Mark Manson, good values:

1. Engage with the world as it is, rather than how you wish it were.
2. Are socially constructive.
3. Whether they are met or not is completely under your control.

Being comfortable is not always under your control, but honesty and integrity are. Maturation is the process of growing better values. Changing values can be very difficult. It requires both reflection and action.

For more help with this, I’ve distilled the processes and principles involved in creating actual value changes in my piece, Transformative Experiences: Changing Thoughts and Feelings Through Action.

Choose Responsibility

The health industry isn’t failing people. Standard model values are failing people. Absent of a cause, the majority of people have determined that the meaning of life is pursuing pleasure and avoiding more pain. Health and a good physique are desirable within that small scope, but the process of getting healthy conflicts with those dominant values. Most people just don’t want to work out.

Claiming that the fitness industry is the problem is a convenient excuse. You may have had a bad trainer or gotten some bad diet advice. Nearly every consistent exerciser has. The reality remains that your health is still your responsibility. The world is not perfectible. I’d like to see businesses and governments become more ethical as well, but it is a little insane to expect every institution to become perfect all the while doing nothing to move in that direction.

I’m not saying you have to start with an extremely challenging CrossFit or Bootcamp environment. In fact, I still contend the 10 minutes per day morning habit is the best place to start. There is nothing wrong with deciding you aren’t that into fitness. Yet, like paying bills, understanding political issues, or self-educating, taking a little time for your health is an essential part of being a mature adult.

If you don’t love fitness, adopt the habit of ten-minutes of daily morning movement. As simple as that sounds it is still easier not to do it. It requires overcoming impulse and choosing fulfilling values. The question is will you value improvement over short-term comfort?

The post You are the Problem, Not the Fitness Industry appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In a wave of evangelical fervor, the 18th amendment outlawed alcohol in the United States, thus initiating a disastrous 14-year experiment known as prohibition. Organized crime grew rampant, laws were blurred by inconsistent enforcement, and, despite an initial drop, alcohol use and abuse increased sharply, particularly amongst women and children.

The intent was good. Following industrialization and the settling of the west, American society saw a stark rise in alcohol abuse. As drinking became more entrenched into popular culture, the ills of alcohol-related recklessness, violence, addiction, and general belligerence were put on full display.

As the spiritual awakening grew steam, more people became convinced that the best course of action was simply to eliminate alcohol. The simplistic logic held that making alcohol illegal would, then, remove the issues associated with these beverages. Yet, as is often the case, trying to legislate away every societal ill exacerbated the problem while creating a disastrous web of unintended consequences.

Prohibition was inarguably a massive failure. Over-demonizing a product under the guise that its negative effects outweigh its positives never works. I’ve consistently pushed a message that clearly indicates humanity would be far happier and better off without smartphones and sweets. I truly believe this, however, there is no going back.

We have to learn how to operate best in this world. Faced with that reality, I enjoy the hell out of pecan pie a la mode and can not imagine my life without the joys of podcasts and audible books. Furthermore, I love a good bourbon on a nice evening, or a margarita to celebrate the end of the work week. The problem is not the pleasure that comes from these luxuries, but that most cannot control themselves and quickly slip into overuse.

There will always be abuse and self-destructive behavior. We shouldn’t ignore the potential for harm, but, likewise, we can’t expect positive outcomes from legislating people’s every choice. As former Breaking Muscle editor, Pete Hitzeman is fond of saying, “Humanity is not perfectable.” Thus, we should treat collective humanity as it is, not as we dream it should be. Improvement will only follow education, personal responsibility, and culture.

Alcohol still has laws, many nonsensical and counterproductive, but for the most part, those whose lives are enhanced, or at least not hurt by alcohol use, have followed a culturally ingrained model of acceptable use.

These people have social circles that don’t condone drinking and driving, problem drinking, daily drunkenness, or any pattern of drunken belligerence. Inappropriate conduct linked to drinking is certain to bring ridicule and ostracize the offender. If repeated, or drastic enough, it warrants confrontation.

Furthermore, there are norms that, while occasionally broken, guide typical behavior:

“Don’t drink alone.”; “Don’t drink before 5.”; “Buzzed driving is drunk driving.”; “He’s had enough. Cut him off.”

We got rid of prohibition, but that didn’t prompt anarchy. In fact, just the opposite. Society policed the environment in a more adaptable, natural way. Culture. Social Norms. Manners.

Today we are witnessing an explosion of obesity, depression, anxiety, and suicide. Psychology and physiology are completely interdependent and our environment discards the needs of both in favor of satisfying every impulse. There are many culprits, but none so obvious as our diets and our smartphones. Like with alcohol, the solution is not law, but culture.

Given their massively destructive effects, we should begin to look at sweets and smartphones as controlled substances. This is not to compare them to hard narcotics or invite government regulation, but, rather, just a useful orientation for helping culture accept and work against their pervasive negatives. Education must drive a better understanding of the drastic harms wrought by unhinged eating and smartphone use and clearly define the most conducive norms and manners.

The way most Americans eat, starting with their children is beyond crazy. It is a constant conveyor of chemically engineered, sugar-infused, unpronounceable-ingredient-added junk, and it is killing our bodies while setting our emotions haywire. Kids wake to Pop Tarts, Cookie Crisp, or donuts.

“Health conscious” parents opt for Frosted-Mini Wheats or whole grain pancakes covered in syrup. Fast food institutions are far more central to most families lives than the dinner table as fruit roll-ups, chips, and Kraft mac and cheese characterize the bulk of foods available at home.

People can scarcely conceive of eating meals that consist only of whole foods that could naturally occur in nature. These are, of course, the only actual foods. We should enjoy the perks of modern technology while maintaining a lucid understanding that these new foods are sub-optimal and warrant limiting.

There is plenty of nutritional manipulation and misinformation, but for the most part, we all know this stuff. We get that we should eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, quit soda, and generally opt for less processed, whole foods. The major issue isn’t knowledge, it is culture.

Shame: Society’s Great Behavior Modifier

Pull out a cigarette and every judgmental fiber of society bores into you. This may be uncomfortable for the smoker, but it is a good thing for society as a whole who are now less likely to smoke than 50 years ago.

This highlights an extremely natural, often socially constructive means that culture has always had for regulating behavior: shame.

Shame gets a really bad rap because it is often associated with closed-mindedness and puritanical rigidity. Yet, as is common in this complex world, the bad comes with significant good. Shame stirs soldiers to heroism and societies to communal cleanliness.

There is no law against picking your nose, but I rarely see anyone publicly digging for gold. As Tamler Sommers explains in his book, Why Honor Matters, honor-shame cultures are concerned with pulling people up towards an ideal, whereas our modern dignity culture breeds complacency, obsessing on how special everyone is by merit of breathing. Rather than classify all shame as bad we should adopt a nuanced approach that can weigh when it is useful. We need contained honor/shame culture.

As individuals, we should try hard not to judge people, but, implicit to living a good life is the requirement that we judge actions. We have to discern between behaviors that are better or worse and all those grey areas in between. The process of culture dialoguing about what behaviors are more and less favorable is essential to any society who’d like to improve or even be capable of feeling united.

This dialogue and its ever-evolving conclusions establish norms and elicit socially constructive shame, whether it is intended or not. That shame pulls the group behavior upwards towards norms that are better for both the individual and group. It is a nuanced approach and I can feel the social justice warriors blood boiling as they are forgoing the rest of this article to craft woke social media retorts.

For an example of constructive shame, consider Japan, where there is almost no litter, despite having hardly any public waste cans. The cultural expectation is for people to take their own garbage home to dispose of it.

Other norms contribute, as well. In Japan, it is considered rude to eat on the run, thus reducing walker and driver waste, and communities routinely join together to clean up what little litter there is—typically small items hidden near the back of bushes and shrubs.

On this very populated island, culture and manners are able to police the environment far more effectively than the anti-litter laws common in the U.S. Anyone who’d litter in Japan is certain to meet considerable disgust and ridicule. How appropriate.

Culture can promote destructive behavior just as fluidly as it prevents it. Broken windows theory contends that visible signs of crime, disorder, and bad behavior encourage more misconduct. We are a social creature. When we see graffiti, litter, or evidence that crime is common, we’re more likely to engage in these destructive behaviors.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, explains how this understanding helped New York City radically reduce crime. The city made it a practice to paint over graffiti every night and police the subways far more diligently. They publicly shamed anyone they caught jumping subway turnstiles by arresting them and leaving them handcuffed and on display until officers returned to the police station for booking at the end of their shift.

In both examples, the community good is put over the desire to be excessively fair to each individual. Rather than account for each individual’s feelings, all their prior experience, whether they knew better, and what other factors might have made them act the way they acted, behavior is simply deemed destructive when it is.

Both litterers in Japan and turnstile jumpers in New York had their rights respected, but were not deemed to have a right to avoid shame or embarrassment. Consequently, societies saw less litter and less crime, while individuals faced constructive feedback far more likely to kick-start arduous, while necessary reform.

Speaking Frankly and Creating Healthy Norms

In the modern world, few influences have been as broadly destructive as unchecked smartphone culture and our out of control eating habits. I’ve made these arguments ad nauseam:

• The State of Our Children’s Union
• Pull Back the Wizard’s Curtain: Embracing Real Life Amid the Age of Artificiality
• 6 Unhealthy Norms Plaguing us All
• Why We are Drowning in the Western Diet
• We Used to Be Humans: Practical Strategies for Battling Tech Addiction
• A Cautionary Tale of Modern Youth Development
• Physical Health is Mental Health

Individual interventions are far less likely to stick against the tide of culture. We are all pulled to cultural norms and our shameless culture pulls the masses down rather than up towards a marker worth striving for. For society to improve so that millions more individuals can thrive, we must be willing to speak frankly and identify better modes of behavior.

I am not saying that we should look to embarrass people or call them names. Hard truths are only worth saying if they are constructive and geared towards necessary change. However, as I contended in my article, It Isn’t Fat Shaming: How Protecting Feelings Hurts Health, we must be able to speak honestly about what is positive and negative.

Our eating norms create a likelihood of living overweight and battling chronic lifestyle-related impediments. Our smartphones are stoking an explosion of anxiety, depression, and purposelessness. We need to dialogue towards a set of manners and social norms that pull people towards fulfilling, socially constructive behavior and away from the opposite.

In my next piece 10 Transformational Habits That Really Force A Change, I look at what manners and socially constructive norms we should adopt in relation to eating and smartphone use. Like alcohol, these forces are not going away, yet, likewise, we can’t just go with the flow in an environment drunk and addicted.

Culture must mitigate these destructive trends. By creating clarity in manners and identifying destructive behaviors, these pleasures can become wonderful, controlled additions to each of our lives.

The post Useful Shame: Countering Junk Food and Smartphone Addiction appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Over the past four weeks, we’ve looked at a collection of industries that I believe are every bit as deadly and corrupt as Big Tobacco: convenience food, pharmaceuticals, and addictive technology. Today, they are far more socially acceptable and ubiquitous than smoking, but as their detrimental effects become more widely understood, that must change.

At their core, all these industries prey on several mistaken understandings of what make us happy. We think that getting more of something, avoiding discomfort, and having our wants and needs immediately satisfied will bring us lasting happiness and fulfillment. We are fed consumerism as the American way, despite overwhelming evidence that it is production, not consumption, that creates sustained happiness.

The New Smoking

Schools rail against the evils of smoking, and in the same breath scold kids for leaving their seats, while rewarding the compliant with cookies and candy. Parents rant and stress about second-hand smoke, while giving their children iPhones in elementary school and allowing youth to sit indoors all day, enthralled by the screen.

We virtually ensure technological addiction that is certain to create mental angst, and then drug the distracted youth to keep them sedated. This creates a pattern of seeking medication to fix issues that inform their future decisions.

Smoking is a terrible, addictive habit that will kill you early. But the pharmaceutical, technology, and convenience food industries differ from Big Tobacco mainly in the social acceptance of the damage they produce.

I’m not saying that pecan pie on Christmas day is the same as a cigarette, or that social media has no utility. Pharmaceuticals have provided life-changing interventions in instances of true need.

It is not that these institutions must be eradicated completely, but major deconstruction is necessary. These industries must be restored to healthy, non-addictive, non-destructive levels, with wariness as to the extreme dangers they can pose.

Change Must Start in School

How are we to operate in light of the pervasive manipulation I have illustrated over the past several weeks? When the standard model is to be absorbed into spirals of addiction and dependency that entrench poor health, what do we do?

We do not have the luxury to mindlessly go with the flow and assume social norms are harmless.

We must reorient our perception of best practices, and commit to values that respect our nature. We cannot throw up our arms and hopelessly concede that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. Rampant manipulation is only defeated through empowering individuals with information and skills.

Schools must lead the charge. They must be the authority in human development, educating children and parents alike with the best developmental practices, and unflinchingly drawing the line against the forces arrayed against human fulfillment. Today I’d like to lay out some simple, clear lessons and practices that could easily become part of our education system.

Nutrition and Movement

Health magnifies every other pursuit, while the absence of it imposes tremendous limitations. What is more core to human fulfillment than mastery of physical, mental, and emotional health? These are only possible with movement, play, nourishment, and expectations that promote delayed gratification and overcoming adversity.

At the root of this is physical literacy and nutrition. An inspired P.E. curriculum, like La Sierra High’s program of the 1960s, should become the gold standard of each school district. Schools should have movement breaks and standing desks. These have been shown to increase student learning, as well as promote cardiovascular and orthopedic health.

In concert with physical literacy should be the promotion of nutritional literacy. Curricula should teach students to be able to shop for and prepare nutritious meals using whole food ingredients.

While we have control of the environment, we should control it. Food in schools should be nutritious. Certainly, there are constraints to cooking in mass, and we will not always have optimal conditions, but whole foods available in nature should make up all the foods available on a school day. Whenever the topic arises, school districts must work with city planners to stop surrounding schools with fortresses of fast food.

Change the Relationship With Technology

We must create a generation of tech users who are equipped with a framework to handle the rapid advance of technology. They must be taught that technology must be used to scaffold humanity to greater capability, or not be used at all.

When technological assistance is practically avoidable, it should be. I’ve seen kids in the weight room try to take out a calculator to add up the total weight on the bar. This is simple arithmetic. We make ourselves less capable when we rely on technology for even the most basic of tasks.

Batching should be taught as the best path to a healthy relationship with messaging services. Whether email, texting, or social media, constant interruption by messages and notifications is not conducive to mental health or productivity.

Teaching and promoting the skills of Deep Work should be at the root of every subject. We should teach our youth to have scheduled email and social media break times each day where they batch that activity. Thus, they’ll be able to check, interact, and return their attention to the world around them.

We need a more clearly defined set of expectations for communication.

Phone calls and personal visits should be taught as the polite path to contact people for time-sensitive needs. People who sent messages will understand that they won’t be answered until a person’s messaging time.

This construct will have the added benefit of teaching that it is rude to have a phone out while in a social situation. Thus, phones should not be out on the table. and earbuds should be removed during conversation.

No Phone Zones are essential for humanity to thrive. At a minimum, these should be established at dinner, in the car, when outdoors, in bed, and while reading. A great strategy might be to put the phone on airplane mode while outdoors, so as to allow a camera, but none of the other distractions.

Restrict the Power of the Pill

Legislation in healthcare is often laden with more issues than solutions. Still, the government must put an end to the bizarre practices of our pharmaceutical companies.

They should have no ability to advertise to the masses. These companies should be blinded to research on the products they produce, should not be allowed to see how many of their pills a doctor prescribes, or offer kickbacks for increased prescriptions.

Beyond stricter industry regulation, education must lead the way. No other institution has the influence to reach all of society. Inspired education is always preferable to, and more effective than, government mandates and intrusive legislation.

It promotes the freedom and individual determination that are at the root of empowered, autonomous people. It gives those essential lessons while respecting each person’s right and responsibility to make their own life great.

Stand Up and Demand Change

Now that we’re armed with an understanding of these destructive, addictive industries, it’s time we demand action from those in a position to enact positive change. It is time we expect schools to be the leaders in human development.

Education must no longer be guided by political appeasement or placating the convenience-addicted masses. Their duty is to tell parents, guardians, and youth what practices are not serving them, and what new habits are best. We must demand that our education systems unflinchingly stand for the practices that promote human thriving.

Schools do not have power to legislate, but they do have the power to enact cultural change by shaping our understanding of the world.

They should create the critical thinking in youth that will allow them to identify and avoid the manipulative practices and negative consequences associated with malevolent industries.

Education in past and current methods of manipulation is a framework to start, but the methods and sources of manipulation will change over time. This means schools must create a desire for lifelong learning that promotes identification of logical fallacies, as well as proper research methods.

We know that physical literacy, good nutrition, delayed gratification, daily challenge, logic, dialogue, financial health, values, purpose, and more form the core of success in the modern world. We know there is clear research to direct best developmental practices.

Furthermore, we know that junk food addiction, technological addiction, and the cultural seeds leading to pharmaceutical reliance are currently proliferating in schools, as in the rest of society.

Schools cannot be just an extension of the broader societal problems; they must be the solution.

Rather than be complicit in chasing what is shiny, they must see through common strategies of manipulation and honestly regroup when they falter. Our world is too complex and the manipulators too advanced for educational paths not to progress accordingly.

• The Saboteurs Of Health In America
• Your Junk Food Addiction Is No Coincidence
• We Used To Be Humans: Practical Strategies To Combat Tech Addiction
• The Cures That Are Killing Us
• The New Core Curriculum For A Healthier Future

The post How We Can Combat the Saboteurs of Our Health appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Your health is your most valuable resource. Unfortunately, society provides precious little guidance to improve it, and in fact creates tremendous pressure toward physical incapacity, disease, and mental angst. In a world where we dogmatically revere neutrality, those who take a stand will win the day, and the only ones doing it are small but powerful groups of insidious, brilliant manipulators.

There is no neutral ground on this issue. To remain impartial is to ensure your entrenched unhealthiness. In the case of schools and parents, doing nothing enables the poor health of those in your care. It may not be your fault, but it is your problem.

Our schools and developmental institutions have been negligent in their duty to become the authority in human development that parents can look to for direction. They’ve gotten so lost in perception-based outcomes that they forgot that their purpose is to prepare a generation to live inspired lives and reach their potential. Our core curricula have nothing to do with what humans need for success in life, or the education central to great citizens.

Who are these manipulative entities who pose as the benign, harmless perks of the modern world? Who are these sinister, deceptive influences convincing you that you need them, even while your nation slips into epidemic levels of physical and mental health disorders? In no particular order, they are the convenience food industry, the technology industry, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Addiction Is Business, and Business Is Booming

These manipulators employ our human nature against us to create paradoxically unnatural habits. The advance of technology has allowed for chemical combinations and constant sensory overload that our biology was not designed to handle.

Our survival instincts tell us to gorge when we see food, especially high calorie food. The lizard brain still believes this could be its last meal ever. Our operating system is not built for a world of all-you-can-eat buffets and homes filled with boxes of cookies and dessert cereals.

It’s not built for a world of algorithms that deliver the perfect video “up next;” where we have eliminated any possibility of boredom, and made it a requirement to curate highlight reels of our lives for thousands to see.

This is an essential area of human education in our era of abundance. Unfortunately, it is not taught anywhere. Our oversight is the manipulator’s opportunity. They spend lavishly, studying our minds and how we can best become addicted.

Addiction is a great business model. It means a reliable consumer inclined to overconsume. You “have to have” a few Dr. Peppers a day. Cha-ching. You “gotta keep your Snapchat streak going,” and feel an overwhelming compulsion to “catch up on social media” after a brief work meeting. Cha-ching, cha-ching. You watched that funny video your dad sent, and next thing you know you’ve spent an hour watching trick shots and dogs chasing their tails. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.

We tell ourselves that these things are not addictive. We just like them, we say, and could choose to quit if and when they actually became a problem. Our denial and underestimation of the scientists’ mastery of addiction is tragic.

We do retain the power to make changes, but our dependencies and habits are manipulated just as easily as the rat in the lab. Once exposed to the alluring poison, we have to overcome the powerful drive of our biology. If that was not enough, we also must do so against the momentum of our entire culture, and from a starting point of almost zero relevant education. We are woefully unprepared for the world we have created.

Flying to Our Own Demise

To grasp the insanity of our disinterest in these trends, imagine that moths were somehow granted the same brain power that humans have, and that they already had access to the same scientific heritage and an organized education system. Despite this, imagine that they still have no qualms about dying from kamikaze attacks on fire and fluorescent light bulbs.

Moths were not prepared for the dawn of agricultural societies reliant on fire, much less the billions of artificial lights in industrialized societies. Wouldn’t it seem careless for our super-intelligent moths to ignore this inconvenient biological impulse? Wouldn’t you expect them to devote some degree of attention to the dangers of flying towards light, or how best to avoid this shocking demise?

If the moth example was happening to humans, we would probably respond because of the acute, dramatic style of self-destruction. Yet our indifference to the 200% increase in suicides among kids ages 10-14 indicates we’re more stubbornly apathetic than even I believed possible. We repeatedly fly to our demise, despite every opportunity to avoid it.

As a society, we have a plethora of research and press that illustrates how our biology has been hacked to create profitable addictions. We see the headlines that this is the unhealthiest generation, physically and emotionally, in the history of the world. Yet we remain on course, complicit in the promotion and normalization of this addiction to our youth, as if there is nothing we can do about it.

The Avalanche of Poor Health

Need more convincing? Since 1970, obesity has more than tripled in youth ages 6-19. Obesity, a significant step above the overweight classification, is becoming the most prominent BMI category: 38% of United States adults are now obese.

By 2030, just 12 years from now, indications are that it will reach 44%. In 1991, nearly every state had less than 10% of residents who were obese. By 2011, every single state was above 20%. Projections are that in just a couple decades, the 13 worst states will see obesity rates at 60% or above.

As this becomes more normal, it will only continue to snowball. BMI may be a flawed metric at the individual level, but the realities of these epidemiological trends are overwhelming.

This is not about aesthetics or “shaming” people into looking a certain way. These are the consequences of a culture that has indoctrinated generations with the belief that loads of sugar, easy macaroni, and fast food are the bulk of a typical diet. Your body cannot operate well under this barrage.

The effects range from widespread fatigue and limited cognitive ability to emotional distress, movement limitation, and startling epidemics of dozens of diseases. The result, despite our technological breakthroughs, is the first generation in modern history that is expected to live shorter lives than their parents.

We’ve created a path that makes the deadly and all-consuming affliction of obesity practically inevitable for future generations. We’d almost be better off if we made nutrition and physical literacy the backbone of education, while giving kids cigarettes. As much as I’m against tobacco use, this bizarre world would lead to less limited, more fulfilled lives than the culture we’ve currently embraced.

Add to this an environment where smart phones have gone from nonexistent to ubiquitous in only a decade. These devices further deter us from moving, but even more concerning is the addiction, anxiety, and social alienation they’ve brought with them. We’ve not been given the framework to use these tools without them addicting and, in effect, using us. Just examine how our youth’s mental health has declined in just five short years, between 2010 and 2015:

• The number of youth indicating they felt useless and joyless increased 33%
• Suicides of adolescents aged 13-18 jumped 31%
• 25% of 13-18-year-olds now have mild to moderate anxiety

These numbers began their rapid increase as teen smart phone ownership crossed the 50% mark in 2012, and reached 73% in 2015. Research has also shown that spending more time online each day corresponds with increasing mental health issues. Suicide risk factors “rose significantly” after two or more hours online per day. As our reliance on these devices deepens, mental health will only get worse, unless we intentionally create an educational path to counter them.

Ask Your Doctor About…

Exacerbating all these health concerns is our society’s proclivity to treat symptoms rather than causes, and to seek the quickest, most superficial solution. The popular narrative for any malady defers responsibility.

Rather than investigate the environmental triggers, we eagerly accept any of the ever-growing list of diagnoses that allow us to medicate. We want the pill that will solve our issues, a reality that pharmaceutical companies have created, and then preyed upon.

The explosion of physical and mental health disorders is tailormade for Big Pharma. It provides the perfect confluence of circumstances to exploit our lust for convenient fixes that require no work at all. They’ve created a culture of drug consumers happy to let pills “solve” their problems, while creating terrifying side effects and crippling addiction.

Look no further for an example than the rampant over-diagnosis of ADHD sweeping across our youth, and now, after a genius marketing campaign, our adults. With this has come the abuse of addictive stimulants like Adderall and Concerta. The loudest critic is Dr. Keith Connors, the man who first formed the ADHD diagnosis. He contends that the alleged ADHD epidemic is, in a word, “preposterous.”

But what else would you expect in this bizarre world where pharmaceutical companies can advertise straight to the consumer? The free-for-all in drug marketing has led to an opioid epidemic responsible for over 20,000 deaths from overdoses in 2015 alone. This doesn’t even factor in the large numbers of heroin-related deaths from people seeking a cheaper substitute for their painkillers.

What Can We Do About It?

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The question remains: what will we do with this information? Do we shake our heads, shrug our shoulders, and concede defeat to a world gone mad? Or do we decide our lives are made for more than that? Will we risk rocking the boat and hurting a few feelings to begin fighting for the future of our children?

Over the next several weeks, we will examine each of these manipulative forces. I’ll make the argument that we can stop and reverse these trends through a strong education system that embraces its responsibility to be the authority in human development.

It starts with parents and concerned citizens drawing the line, and demanding their schools take notice. Hopefully this series shifts your perspective on the role of education and how we can best create great people. At the very least, I hope it creates more intention in how you consume.

You might also like:

• Your Junk Food Addiction Is No Coincidence
• We Used To Be Humans: Practical Strategies To Combat Tech Addiction
• The Cures That Are Killing Us
• How We Can Combat The Saboteurs Of Our Health
• The New Core Curriculum For A Healthier Future

The post The Saboteurs of Health in America appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I do encourage people to hire trainers. Your health is your greatest asset, and improving it will positively affect every arena of life. Its worth investing in a qualified professional who can teach you to execute proper movement patterns, organize your efforts, hold you accountable, and guide your transition to healthier lifestyle habits. However, I object to the notion that getting healthier is so complex and technical that you have no chance unless guided by the wisdom of a fitness shaman.

Exercise is too important for this nonsense. We should not be mystifying it or setting up barriers to starting. We should not complicate fitness or create excuses for people to abdicate their responsibility to maintain their own health. Rather, we should be pushing to increase access and lower the barriers to entry.

Why We All Need Fitness

Fitness is for all. It’s who you were made to be and how you were made to live. Through most of human history, structured exercise didn’t exist. Humans expressed vibrant strength, stamina, and movement literacy simply because they lived in environments that promoted natural human behavior.

Fitness is only complicated because of our current industrialized, urbanized, and increasingly sedentary society. As we sit all day, lean in towards screens, walk on mattress-like shoes, and eat a diet of chemically engineered “foods,” our natural inclination and love for moving wanes. It is replaced by chronic stress, physical pains, movement compensations, and a general malaise that makes lifestyle change very challenging.

This is the environment that creates jobs for us in the fitness industry. There is a tremendous opportunity to help people. Some people’s movement challenges are significant enough that they really must start with the help of an expert. But for the majority, it doesn’t have to be so hard. Step one is to just start hiking or walking on a regular basis, eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink more water. Not so tricky, huh? That’s a pretty mild prescription, but it’s a vast improvement for most.

Do We Need a License to Move?

Every field and every arena of life is drawn toward regulation, quantification, and rigid authority. Currently, the American Council on Exercise (ACE) is pushing for cities to require “fees, permits, and particular certifications just to lead fitness classes in public parks.”

This trend toward greater regulation shouldn’t surprise us. Ironically, much of the inactivity killing Americans is the consequence of our societal obsession with safety and avoiding risk. In our world of rampant obesity and sedentary habits, do we really need to require permits to conduct organized exercise? Is fitness something we have to legislate now? Should we be telling people that moving their body is only safe at the hands of a certified professional?

If you favor this sort of regulation because you believe in the value of your own certification, then go attract those clients. Don’t bitterly demand that we create a client base for you through legislation that favors your certification. Perhaps you have something to learn from the interpersonal skills of those “lesser” trainers that are generating such great compliance and consistency.

The Frustrations of the Professionals

I understand the issue of the rampant misunderstandings about good training. As someone in the sports performance industry, I have experienced my fair share of frustration watching novice coaches with no understanding of physiology or training principles market themselves as experts.

Social media and pop culture have only made this more of a challenge. Our society puts forward some pretty warped concepts of fitness and training on the internet and on reality TV. Is it any wonder most people aren’t attracted to the idea of paying a fitness professional? All they expect to see is a meathead yelling at them while they are slamming ropes to the point of throwing up.

Furthermore, I understand that there are others far more qualified than I who have worked their entire lives getting advanced degrees, licenses, and a billion certifications. They’ve committed their lives to improving people’s movement patterns so that they can live pain-free lives. We all benefit on a daily basis from their research, insight, and guidance. Imagine having that level of mastery, and being lumped into the same category as the 22-year-old former frat boy who partied his college years away, and now just wants to make some money. The two are lightyears apart in knowledge, but the latter steals dozens of clients because he tweets a lot and played a couple years of JUCO football.

These frustrations are entirely valid. But they do not justify propagating this myth that fitness improvement is only possible under the guidance of a member of the fitness elite. This self-importance only creates a barrier for people considering positive lifestyle changes.

It also may be costing you clients. Regardless of your feelings about the approach of places like Planet Fitness, they’re the most popular fitness enterprise in the country for a reason. They are striking a chord with the average American, and at least getting people through the front door of the fitness world.

Surprisingly, these sentiments were echoed in my discussion with Bobby Maximus, who is best know for his insane workouts. He feels there is too much jealousy and criticism amongst those in the fitness industry. He’s taken pros and average Joes to heights they’d have never imagined, and his only degrees are in English, psychology, and education. Sure, he’s a former professional fighter, but he still asserts there tends to be too much emphasis on advanced anatomy, and too little on whether you can train and help people.

What Communities Should Be Doing

The need for more healthy lifestyles and movement is as pressing as any societal concern. Humans simply cannot thrive mentally, physically, or spiritually without respecting the needs of their bodies. We should not be creating more anxiety and difficulty along the path to fitness improvement. On the contrary, we should be promoting steps towards fitness in every arena of life.

There is a park that just opened near my house that is a phenomenal example of what communities can do to promote fitness for their residents. It has two playgrounds, one for very young kids, and one that has steep slides, monkey bars, and a variety of contraptions for older kids. There are swings, a splash pad, tennis courts, sand volleyball courts, basketball courts, and a fenced-in skate park, and that’s just the play area. The bulk of the park is wide-open grass with room for multiple games of two-hand touch or frisbee football.

Surrounding all this is a walking/running path complete with workout stations every couple hundred feet. There are adult monkey bars, pull up bars, and even a Roman chair station. As I walk the trail in the evenings, I’m impressed to see the park full of people enjoying activity, where they were once probably just Netflixing.

Is this the sort of thing we should be regulating? Should I go to the city council and insist that they pay qualified trainers to be hon hand at all times to instruct people? Of course not. It’s not financially viable, and would probably just scare people away.

We’ve convinced ourselves that everything and everywhere is dangerous, and the result is that we’ve radically reduced areas to enjoy the outdoors and move. We should want bike lanes on our streets that make people more likely to bike to work. The more we can do to make it easier to start moving and living more actively, the better.

Society must encourage humans to get up and just start to move. You’re pretty safe with a few Tabata circuits of jump ropes, glute bridges, lunges, and push-ups. BJ Gaddour has made a career out of helping inexperienced people online with programs that emphasize easy, low-risk bodyweight movements. If the traditional sets and reps aren’t for you, maybe you will like objective-based activities and games like racquetball and rowing. As Phil White, co-author of Unplugged, asserts:

“Go and introduce a little adversity. If you can be outside instead of being indoors… just go away and play and make it fun again. When did fitness and movement become this chore? Like one more thing to do and one more mile to get; 10 more reps to get; 10,000 more steps to get… Go out and find something. Either rediscover a sport that you used to find fun earlier in life, or, heaven forbid try a new one.”

The opportunities are endless, and the important thing is that we promote a willingness to reconnect with your biology’s innate desire to move.

The Goal Is Fitness Autonomy

The root of this cultural shift will be values and education. I believe all Americans should be exposed to health and training early and often, and spend far more time in a deep, immersive physical literacy system.  I’d love to live in a world where the only adults who need trainers are professional athletes. Instead, fitness professionals would be staffed at public schools, creating graduates who understand how to move freely, confidently, and passionately.

The ideal is to create fitness autonomy in the population. You’d probably see a vast improvement in participation in CrossFit, kettlebell clubs, martial arts, and all manner of active hobbies that people felt physically capable of starting. If we had a foundation of movement offered to all, everyone would feel empowered to chase its joys in whatever way they liked.

The secret is just to get started. While I do believe people should be inclined to invest in learning about their health and training, the reality is that it’s better to have a free market where competition drives better coaching and training methods. Plenty of coaches have tremendous book knowledge, but no ability to drive the most important factor: compliance in a training program. While poor coaching is a problem, the far scarier threat is our general lack of fitness and health. We cannot allow for these to become an elitist concern. We should not mystify them to the point where people are afraid to try anything.

The post You Don’t Need a Pro – Just Go! appeared first on Breaking Muscle.